Jessie Bluejay Blog Archive

French Bread Frenzy

I've been on a french bread baking frenzy. I'm a novice but my bread's been really improving. The recipe I've been using is adapted from this one. There's a video so if you're unclear about anything, you can refer to that.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 c warm water
• 2 pkg yeast (or 4. 5 t)
• 2 t salt
• 6-7 c flour*
• 1-2 T cornmeal

Directions:

Pour ½ cup of the warm water over the yeast in a big-ass mixing bowl. Leave it for 10 minutes or so to let the yeast activate. It should get bubbly and foamy on top. Once the yeast is ready, you can add the rest of the water and the salt. Begin slowly adding the flour, a cup at a time. Once you can no longer mix it with a spoon, start kneading it. Keep gradually adding flour and kneading it in. Punch the dough, press the dough, smack the dough, do whatever the hell you want to it. Rub the dough that sticks to your hands back into the big ball and knead it back in. I continue adding flour until it is just barely not sticking to my hands. This usually ends up being about 6.5 cups, but it varies. You do not want to over-flour it. The whole kneading process generally takes about 15 minutes. Once you have your big dough ball, put it into an oiled bowl, roll it around so the whole ball gets oiled, cover it with plastic wrap, and leave it in a warm place till it doubles in size (about an hour).

While the dough is rising, prepare your pans. This recipe will make quite a bit of bread so you need to figure out what kind of loaves you want. You could make one monster loaf, 6 super skinny baguettes, 100 mini baguettes for your French barbies, whatever you want. I like the baguettes best because they have the highest crust to bread ratio. For the pictured batch I made two skinny baguettes as long as a cookie sheet and two short chubby loaves that fit into loaf pans. You'll want to sprinkle a thin layer of cornmeal over the pans. To be absolutely sure your bread doesn't stick to the sides of a loaf pan, you can grease the pan and then sprinkle cornmeal on every surface.

Next, you're going to form your loaves and prepare them for the second rise. First, grab however much dough you want for your loaf. (You'll probably need to experiment a little.) Roll it out on a floured surface into a rectangle about ¼-½ inch thick. The size of your rectangle will depend on how much dough you're using. Then roll it up from long end to long end for a baguette or from short end to short end for a chubby little loaf. Pinch the ends together and lay it seam side down onto your cornmeal-covered pan. Do this for all your loaves. They're going to double in size again so make sure they're far enough apart so that they don't morph into each other. Also make sure that they're exactly where you want them because if you move them after the second rise you'll likely knock all of the air bubbles out and ruin your bread. Take a sharp knife and make some shallow slits in each loaf (like in the photo). I have no idea what happens if you skip this step. (Maybe the bread explodes in the oven?) Cover them again and let them rise for about an hour.

While they're rising, prepare the egg wash. Combine one egg, a splash of milk or half & half, and a pinch of salt. You could also just use an egg white or some olive oil if you prefer but you definitely want to use something that'll make a nice crunchy crust. Now the hard work is done. Pour yourself a nice stiff drink and rock out. Once the dough's doubled, use a pastry brush to paint the loaves. Try not to slop it all over the place or it could cause your loaves to stick to the pan. Put the pans into a 425° oven and bake for as little as 20 minutes for skinny loaves or as much as 30 minutes for fatter ones. They're done when they've turned all golden brown (the exact color of Giorgio Armani) and sound kinda hollow when you tap them. Immediately move them to a rack to cool.

Enjoy your delicious loaves! Noah and I split a baguette tonight and dipped it into an olive oil and truffle oil mixture. It was frickin' heavenly.

* A word about flour: I'm sure bread flour would yield better results. Bread flour is basically just regular flour mixed with some wheat gluten. I usually buy wheat gluten in bulk and mix one tablespoon into every cup of flour, but I've been out for a while. It adds air and a moist chewiness to the bread. But regular flour does work just fine.

2009-03-01 21:57:42 UTC